Religious Education

Shelter Rock's Commitment to Lifespan Religious Education is Profound!

Growing <span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="color:var(--primary-color-bg)">Hearts</span></i></span>, Minds & Spirits at UUCSR

Growing Hearts, Minds & Spirits at UUCSR

At the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock, Religious Education for Children and Youth is more than Sunday school—it’s a journey of discovery, connection, and purpose.

For parents, it’s knowing your children are safe, welcomed, and encouraged to ask big questions about life and the world around them. For kids, it’s hands-on fun—stories, art, games, music, and service projects that spark curiosity and build confidence. For teens, it’s a place to explore who you are, connect with friends who share your values, and take on projects that make a real difference.

From newborns to high school seniors, we offer an age-appropriate path for every stage of growth—helping young people find their voice, live their values, and step into the world with courage and compassion.

Join us on Sundays at 11:00 am and be part of a community where hearts open, minds grow, and spirits shine.

Age Groups

The Playroom: Newborns to Age 3

Our Playroom is a warm, joyful, and safe space where our youngest children are cared for by loving, professional staff. While parents and caregivers attend worship or other congregational activities, little ones discover the world around them—learning new skills, expressing emotions, and beginning to share in the joys and challenges of being with others.

Spirit Play: Age 4 to Grade 2

Spirit Play invites children to explore life’s big questions through the wonder of story, ritual, and play, inspired by the Montessori method. Each session begins with an engaging story told through an interactive, hands-on approach. After “wondering time,” where children share thoughts and feelings (without right or wrong answers), they are free to explore the story through art, building, or other creative activities. This mix of structure and choice builds community, fosters independent thinking, and encourages a deep sense of spirituality

Feasts & Festivals: Grade 3

In Feasts & Festivals, we celebrate the world’s rich tapestry of cultures and religions through cooking, costumes, crafts, song, and dance. By exploring diverse customs, we discover our shared humanity and the values that connect us to children everywhere.

Toolbox of Faith: Grade 4

Toolbox of Faith introduces children to the values that shape our UU faith—integrity, courage, love, and more—as practical “tools” for living. Through stories, games, crafts, music, and conversation, children reflect on these shared values, gaining insight into how to use them to make meaningful decisions in their daily lives.

The Questing Year: Grades 5 & 6

This engaging program invites junior youth on four “quests” that connect spiritual exploration with action: Mystery Quest, UU Quest, Action Quest, and Inner Quest. Along the way, they participate in retreats, service projects, and fundraising activities—culminating in a Bridging ceremony that celebrates their growth and commitment to making a difference in the world.

Crossing Paths: Grades 7 & 8

Rooted in over 70 years of UU religious education, Crossing Paths helps youth explore their own faith identity by engaging with other traditions, such as Buddhism, Quakerism, Paganism, and Humanism. Through experiential learning, field trips, and family-centered activities, participants discover the wisdom of “Many Mountains, Many Paths,” honoring the beauty of other faiths while deepening their grounding in UU values.

Senior Seminar: Grades 9-12

Senior Seminar is a fun, vibrant, and welcoming group for high schoolers. This is a place where youth become leaders, where they become empowered with the tools they need to pave their own path—planning activities, setting goals, and leading themselves and their peers. With the support of caring adult advisors, youth decide what they want to focus on and work together to make it happen. This transformative group challenges youth to grow, learn, and lead—building community through activities they help choose and shape. Supported by caring adult advisors, students take ownership of and participate in:

Youth-Led Worship

Each year, the Senior Seminar youth plan and lead a Worship service for the congregation. The youth choose the theme, structure, and all elements of this Worship, teaching the congregation about themselves, their faith, and what Unitarian Universalism means to them as they are embarking on their spiritual journeys.

Community Service Projects

The Senior Seminar youth lead the congregation in a Midnight Run every year. Midnight Run is a volunteer-based organization whose mission is to bridge the gap between the housed and those who are experiencing homelessness. Midnight Run coordinates more than 1,000 missions per year where volunteers from churches, synagogues, schools, and other philanthropic groups distribute food, clothing, blankets, and other personal care items to those who are impoverished and/or experiencing homelessness on the streets of New York City. This, along with other projects our youth choose to work on, are among the community-based service projects we do each year.

Overnights and Retreats

The Senior Seminar youth help plan and attend overnights and retreats each year, which are fantastic opportunities for our youth to spend time with one another in nature and lead and participate in activities that facilitate peer bonding, cultivate their spirituality, and promote inclusion and community-building.

Senior Youth Conference

Senior Youth Conferences, or “CONs”, are single-day, overnight, or weekend-long events planned by high school-aged youth with adult support. At their core, Senior Youth Conferences are experiences in building a covenantal community. Each “CON” has a different theme and focus, but they all incorporate community building, fun, worship, spirituality, and youth leadership. Youth experience both the safety of being in a covenantal community with supportive adults and peers, and the responsibility to take on leadership roles, plan events and activities, and to repair relationships when difficult situations arise.

Bridging

At many UU congregations, Bridging is a graduation of sorts where the high school seniors “bridge” into young adulthood. At Shelter Rock, the tradition includes three milestones of our young people’s faith development journeys: the younger elementary children having deeply explored the UU Values, the middle-grade youth exercising agency over making social change, and the high school seniors reflecting on their faith exploration thus far and taking their UU values out into the world and bringing their new learnings back home.

High School Seniors are invited to participate in Bridging in a variety of ways – some may wish to share a spoken reflection of their experiences at Shelter Rock, sing or play an instrumental piece of music that is meaningful to you, read a poem, and/or be present for the ritual of crossing the bridge into young adulthood.

Bridging consists of a Worship service in the middle of June, followed by a celebratory picnic afterwards to commemorate this monumental milestone!

We look forward to welcoming your high school youth into our program!

Please reach out to Jamie Walowitz, UUCSR’s Youth and Adult Faith Engagement Coordinator, at jwalowitz@uucsr.org or 516-472-2943 for more information about Senior Seminar!

As we say each Sunday:

Love is the doctrine of this congregation, the quest for truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer. To dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need – this do we affirm and covenant with each other.

RE Resource Library

We invite you invite you to take a look at this collection of resources if you haven't already done so. At the moment there are 216 volumes reflected in the catalog, with many more to come.

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